Friday, August 22, 2008

Gary Thorne Must Go

Put me down as hoping this is Gary Thorne's last season with the O's. Two painful comments from tonight's game:

Thorne said the Pirates traded away Bay and Nady from "one of the league's best outfields" to save on payroll. While the deals did save on payroll, that wasn't the only purpose. The Pirates are a long way from contending, and neither Bay nor Nady was likely to be around when the team was ready to win again. If an announcer doesn't understand that, he has no place communicating in an official position for a team rebuilding.

Taking a look at the MLB wins leaders list, Thorne wondered who should win the AL Cy Young award: Cliff Lee, A.J. Burnett or Mike Mussina. Lee is an outstanding candidate, but only in a very small way because of his 18 wins. And when Thorne started diminishing Lee's candidacy since he pitches for a last place team, I was speechless. It's 2008. If you don't understand that pitcher wins are a meaningless statistic and that the Cy Yound award doesn't just go to the pitcher who wins the most games on a playoff contender, you have no business working in baseball.

Between Thorne, Dempsey and The Hall of Famer, the Orioles have an announcing team that truly does not seem to understand the game of baseball in 2008.

UPDATE: Mariano Rivera comes on after Aubrey Huff reaches to attempt to record the final out of the 8th. Thorne says, and I'm quoting after rewinding the DVR, "He has not been a guarantee this year the way he's been in past years... He's still very, very tough but there are nights you can get hits off Mariano Rivera." Thanks to Jim Palmer for pointing out that "he's been awfully good in the least year, [converting] 57 of the last 60 save opportunities." Oh, and that "lefties are hitting .178 and righties are hitting .191" against him. Looking at Rivera's numbers at baseball-reference.com, I see that Rivera has allowed a 0.745 WHIP this season, which would be the best mark of his outstanding career. His .185 BAA would be just the third best mark of his career, behind 1999 when Rivera finished 3rd in the Cy Young voting and 2005 when he finished second in the voting. He's also been significantly better than in 2007, when Rivera posted a .248 BAA and a 1.12 WHIP. But I guess Gary doesn't like those numbers. Or didn't look at them.

UPDATE # 2: "Alex Rodriguez, runner goes. That one in the air towards the gap, left center field (voice rising) aaaaannnnddd... CAUGHT!!! In the stands. For a two RBI shot. Or one. A double." He just gave the "I can't believe he made that play!" voice for a fan in the stands who sat in his seat and had a ground rule double bounce into his lap. And he miscalled it as a homer. Stop talking!!!!